Gloss Kitchens Bristol

Gloss Kitchens Bristol

If you want your kitchen to look sleek and glossy like a photo out of a magazine, you can have it with a careful choice of cabinets, worktops, flooring materials, and a well-thought out overall design. There’s nothing quite as stunning as today’s high gloss kitchens, and they all rely on a few simple rules to create that slick modern look. If you are in the market for a new kitchen in Bristol, visit our page on Gloss Kitchens in Bristol or call us on: 0117 924 6002

Firstly let us explain what ‘high gloss’ actually means; a gloss finish is designed to take advantage of the optical properties of a light wave reflecting from a door to produce the desired ‘glossy effect’. The smoother the surface finish, the more light waves will be reflected at a constant angle by that material- creating the gloss look; conversely the ‘rougher’ the surface finish the more light waves will be dissipated in different directions, reducing the reflectiveness of the material and thus the glossy appearance. So, we can understand from this that ideally for a lustrous finish we want to very smooth material, but of course we also need to consider other requirements of our material specification.

One of the easiest ways to get a great contemporary gloss kitchen is to choose contrasting colours. For example, using black gloss kitchen cabinets to contrast with a white worktop, or using white gloss kitchen cabinets to contrast with a black worktop. If such extreme opposites aren’t for you but you still want a look that will deliver the same eye-popping impact, you can explore cream gloss cabinets which look great contrasted with natural woods. It’s easy to go overboard, so be sure to keep everything balanced. You don’t need a perfect ratio of one colour to another, but consulting an expert to help you find that sweet spot is always an asset.

There’s more than one way to create a stunning high gloss kitchen. Many choose to use glossy woods all over, and then choose a bolder worktop or splash-back to really make the natural beauty of the wood stand out. You can use different shades, patterns, and lighting to create this effect as well, giving you an incredible degree of flexibility and versatility.

Choosing a colour to highlight can really give high gloss kitchens a special quality. Generally, it’s best to choose just one bold colour and keep it consistent across the blacks, whites, and woods and stainless steel accents that you may have. Choosing a gloss kitchen cabinet colour and keeping everything else subtle and very dark or very light can create a magical room that really stands out. Speaking of stainless steel accents, almost all contemporary high gloss kitchens are perfect for stainless steel. Sinks, refrigerators, and accents all integrate perfectly, but black and white appliances can still look great too.

Requirements for materials used in high gloss kitchen cabinets. As well as luster, the kitchen cabinets must be robust and durable, able to cope with the odd bang and knock as well as variations in temperature, exposure to UV light, changing humidity and direct spillage of water and other liquids.

Manufacturers of high quality kitchens have spent decades refining materials and production processes to produce finishes that can cope with all the environmental, physical and chemical factors that the doors may be exposed to. If you are mindful of these considerations, it enables you to evaluate more thoroughly which finish is right for you. For example, some manufacturers add peroxide to lacquered finishes to act as an accelerant to the chemical reaction as it reduces curing times for the lacquer allowing faster re-coating times. This makes the manufacturing process more efficient- however, there is a big potential downside in that with exposure to UV light (from the sun) the peroxide can create a yellow tinge to the door- most definitely not something you want to see. There are alternative manufacturing processes that do not use peroxide. A good way to insure yourself against such problems is through your warranty; make sure that you specifically ask about UV fade and that it is not excluded- if it is; be suspicious. Order a sample of the door before you confirm your whole order, then you can experiment with spilling tea, coffee, wine, blackcurrant juice and cleaning liquids on the door to satisfy yourself of its robustness.

These ‘quality’ requirements reduce considerably the number of materials that are suitable for use in a kitchen. The materials in broad usage are; PVC, lacquer, glass, and acrylic. They all have unique characteristics and vastly varying costs.

Glass is very hard wearing and has excellent ‘quality’ properties and luster; it is however expensive. At the other end of the scale PVC is the least expensive; depending on how it is manufactured it can have a really good quality properties, but if poorly manufactured can be prone to delamination. (the separation of the PVC from the substrate) In most cases PVC does not have as smooth a finish as more expensive materials, and as such should only be used in lighter colours where the slightly uneven reflectiveness is less noticeable. A lacquered finish is developed by spray coating a ‘door blank’ in a specialised paint; this can produce a beautiful smooth highly reflective finish in a very wide range of colours. High quality lacquers can be extremely hard wearing, but as always you get what you pay for and good quality lacquer finishes are considerably more expensive than the cheaper, poorer ones.

Acrylic is a very reflective material but can, untreated be too soft meaning it scratches easily. Quality finishes can be achieved by applying a transparent lacquer to the surface, bestowing the finished product with far greater resistance to scratching and abrasion.

The big take-away is that high gloss kitchens need balance. You need something bold, but if the whole kitchen is too bold then it may be garish or hard to integrate into the rest of the house. When choosing colours, remember that your contemporary kitchen will be ripe with aggressive angles and appealing geometric shapes, so you don’t need to go overboard choosing the brightest colours or the most intricate wood patterns.

Don’t focus too heavily on any one element; you need to consider how they will all work together. If you absolutely, positively must have a certain colour; keep in mind that you may be limiting the selection of components that will pair well with it. That said, there are exceptions to every rule, and thinking outside of the box can lead to fantastic results. As long as you have fun with it and you like what you see, that’s all that matters.